obituary. 247 



The Late Mr John Grant Thomson. 



Mr John Grant Thomson, one of the original members of 

 the Society, passed away on 30th March at his home, Mount 

 Barker, Grantown-on-Spey. He was born at Petty in Inverness- 

 shire on 13th February 1835, and when he was still a boy his 

 father was appointed forester to the Earl of Stair at Culborn, 

 near Stranraer. His first training in the work of woodlands was 

 received in Wigtonshire. For short periods he was at Chopwell 

 in Durham and at the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. In 

 1858 he was on the Abernethy district of the Strathspey estate, 

 and from that date till his retirement in May 1909 he continued 

 in the service of the Seafield family. In i860 he was promoted 

 to the wood-managership of the Strathspey estate, and in 1881 

 received also the wood-managership of the Glen Urquhart 

 estate. 



The outstanding feature of his management in the earlier 

 period of his career was the extensive scale on which planting 

 was carried on. This was during the lifetime of John, the 

 seventh Earl (who died in 1881), and Ian Charles, the eighth 

 Earl (who died in 1884). Millions upon millions of Scots pine 

 plants were put into the ground and wide acres were covered with 

 thriving plantations, and though this department of forest work 

 ceased in 1884 the Strathspey woodlands retained their reputa- 

 tion. Special mention may be made of the success with which 

 crops of Scots pine and larch have been obtained by natural 

 regeneration in Curr, Skye, and other districts, from 1865 

 onwards. 



The work done by Mr Grant Thomson in the management of 

 the extensive woodlands under his charge as well as in the 

 planting of large areas of hill-ground will remain the largest 

 effort by any single individual in the cause of forestry in Great 

 Britain during the whole course of the nineteenth century. 



Mr Grant Thomson was very careful and zealous in the 

 training of young foresters, and many of his pupils owe positions 

 of trust to the skilled tuition and kindly interest of their chief. 



On the formation of the Northern Branch of the Society in 

 1907, ]Mr Grant Thomson became its first president. The 

 members of the parent Society have twice visited the forests 

 under his management, and the fame of the Strathspey forests 

 is such that, almost without exception, all the forestry experts of 



